There are a lot of things that work in comics, and a lot that don’t. Some of these storytelling aspects were ideas that once were greaoundbreaking and great, but like much of the worlds greatness have simply become cliches. It takes talent to know the difference and Wally Wood knew the difference.

Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work is a classic look at what does work in comics storytelling that has always fascinated me because it still holds up today. Wood wanted to be “as efficient as possible” in his work, so he developed these panels as shortcuts in his visual storytelling. He hung them aound his studio as reference and they have made their way into countless other comics artist’s workspaces since. In 2006, DJ Coffman even beat me to it and had all 22 tattooed on his arm as a sleeve.

I wonder if he’ll add today’s page to the other arm?

Regardless, as you may have noticed at the top of the page, today we have a very special guest writer. While Sohmer takes a few days to continue hollowing out the potential “Sohmer-Cave” under his house, the man behind Thrillbent digital comics, Mark Waid has stepped in for today’s page!

Mark Waid has written a wider variety of well-known characters than any other American comics author, from Superman to the Justice League to Spider-Man to Archie and hundreds of others. His award-winning graphic novel with artist Alex Ross, KINGDOM COME, is one of the best-selling comics of all time. With over twenty-five years of experience in his field, Waid maintains an active blog that is crammed full of advice for beginning writers and experienced authors both. Waid and TV scribe John Rogers launched Thrillbent in 2012, an imprint dedicated to exploring the potential of the digital comics medium.

And that’s not all! We dug up a friend of Mark’s, the very talented artist, Jeremy Rock:

A talented young artist with a clean yet expressive line and an exceptional eye for a variety of subject matter from tech to fantasy and everything in between, Jeremy Rock made his professional debut at Avatar where he worked on such titles as NARCOPOLIS, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and THRESHOLD. He then worked for BOOM! Studios, where he drew short stories for ZOMBIE TALES, and illustrated COLD SPACE. Currently, Jeremy is illustrating the graphic novel Days Missing Enox for Roddenberry. He is also a creator at Thrillbent.

Hopefully they will both be back in the future with more Panels That Don’t Work. Having 22 “Don’t work” panels side-by-side with the “works” panels would be fantastic!

Until then, have a great day browsing the stacks, my friends! We return here Friday!